Barlon Hightower was a dark-skinned man, with blackhair and brown eyes. A skilled pilot[2] and gunner,[1] Hightower's skills earned him a posting to Rogue Squadron, the Alliance's foremost starfighter squadron.[2]

In 2003, Wizards of the Coast published a series of Star Wars Roleplaying Game articles on its website called Hoth: Under the Ice. In the third installment, author Cory J. Herndon brought elements of Hoth Stuff! back into continuity by framing the story as a tall tale that Wedge Antilles tells to new recruits, partially to see their faces once they actually meet a very much alive Wes Janson later in their training. Antilles' presence on Hoth after the battle is canonized, as is his confrontation with the scavenger Arns Grimraker. In 2008, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia included an entry on Hightower, without mentioning the specifics of the story he appeared in, canonizing his existence within the Star Warsuniverse. A separate entry for Arns Grimraker confirmed the scavenger's presence on Hoth in the aftermath of the battle, but cut his arrival down to days after the conflict, not months, as stated in Hoth Stuff! The entry also canonized Janson's presence during these events.

In 2012, authors Jason Fry and Paul R. Urquhart included Hightower as a member of Rogue Squadron during the Battle of Hoth in The Essential Guide to Warfare. This article assumes that the basic events of Hoth Stuff!—that Hightower was a member of a team that recovered a freighter containing Antilles, who had escaped from Hoth—occurred, but the specifics of Antilles' story, now framed as in-universe, did not.